Entries in Baby Driver [2017]
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People who don’t watch enough movies love to accuse us film critics of seeing too many. We know the beats. We’ve seen the tropes. We remain eternally hopeful, but mostly unimpressed. Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver is a spectacular (and spectacularly rare) left-brain/right-brain phenomenon: a classic action/comedy that’s also a pseudo musical and one of the year's most romantic films. A true film obsessive, Wright tweaks several formulas with near-scientific precision, resulting in something that feels at once comfortably familiar and utterly original. The sharp left turns in this Atlanta-set crime flick aren’t exclusive to its dash-gripping practical stunts: Wright shifts characters and moods from foreground to background and back as smoothly as the titular wheelman prodigy (Ansel Elgort) switches gears--creating complex, investment-worthy relationships that, miraculously, never feel out of step with the sardonic wit and formidable, metal-on-metal set pieces. Please, give me more films like this to get sick of.

Listen to Kicking the Seat Podcast #235 to hear Ian and Keeping it Reel's David Fowlie get revved up over Baby Driver!